Mists of Paragonia


The BlizzCon is over and the information about Mists of Pandaria have settled. Time to ask Paragon members about their thoughts regarding the new expansion, the Pandarens and the new Monk class.

 

What are your thoughts on Mists of Pandaria?

Kyy (Priest): I actually think it’s pretty awesome, it shows blizzard still has some balls, if you can say that. Pandas and pet battles in pokemon style sure do sound bit childish, but for me wow hasn’t been really serious or dark game for along while. All I care is that I have fun while playing and I have more than just weekly raid to do.

So for now I’m really excited about MoP!

zYN (Death Knight) Seemed cool at a glance. I kind of like the Pandaren theme, I hope it can carry the whole expansion. I've also liked the fact that every expansion so far has had a some kind of driving force behind it. I guess the "WAR" concept is cool in a way, but doesn't get me engaged at all. A cool villain would be way better. Something like Illidan in Warcraft 3 for example was the epitome of awesome for example. Changing the voice actor and the changes to his character made me cringe though when finally seeing him in WoW.

Smirk (Paladin):  It seems to have a lot of stuff in it, I like the general wibe they are going for and the asian landscape/art style. Pandas are not a  dealbreaker in my books, people are giving them a pretty hard time after playing a game with spacegoats and walrusmen. Pet-battles, scenarios and challenge modes will be just another ways to kill time for me and I will be giving them a try.

Fragi (Rogue): Even though I'm personally not too interested in the pet battle system, challenge modes, scenarios and what not  I still like the overall feel and theme of the expansion though I am a bit concerned about the high number of bosses they intend to release with the launch (4.0 progress all over again).

Xenophics (Priest): I have to say that I'm a lot less hyped about it that I thought I would be. But on the other hand it's a new expansion, something Cataclysm wasn't. It just reworked a lot of the old zones and gave horde goblins, which I don't like that much. But we'll see, maybe I'll start getting more excited about it as we come nearer to beta.

 

What are your thoughts on the (again) redesigned talent system?

Kyy: If done properly they should add totally new depth to the game and make it bit more fun to play around with different play styles. Only concern for me currently is that after a fast look at the talents shown in blizzcon it seems some classes did get way more interesting stuff than others. Hopefully they do something for those boring choices.

zYN: I much prefer the new talent system, especially if you can change stuff on the fly. Obviously enough though there will be cookie-cutter builds for every single PvE encounter where one trait is more valuable than the other, but it'll still be better than what we have now.

Smirk: How it will end up working depends solely on the implamentation, but the general concept is great. Being able to switch talents more freely and to handpick the best ones for each fight-mechanic sounds fun as long as it doesn't take too much time in front of each boss.

Fragi: The new talent system looks like a leap to the right direction. The "cookie cutter" builds won't (probably) be going anywhere but at least there are some encounter specific choices to be made. We shall see how they balance the trees out.

Xenophics: It sounds very good to me. I love the idea of being able to retalent for each boss, and that there is more freedom in choosing what talents you want to run with depending on your playstyle.

 

What are your feeling towards the newly introduced Monk class so far?

Kyy: Hard to say yet since we don’t know that much at the moment. They are trying a lot of new type of game play with it. Healer monk is either going to be something really cool or just bad version of Shaman with their position focused healing. And I doubt the melee and tank spec are going to be that much different from current specs available, but we’ll see.

I just hope they remember how it went with Death Knights and won’t make same mistakes balance wise.

zYN: First impression was "cool." I didn't explode in excitement, but kinda cool. The concept of a melee healer allows for a lot of creativity in designing abilities for it. I'm sure it'll also absolutely break some encounters, but that's nothing new - plenty of classes have done that in the past. How good monks will actually be in raids will remain a mystery until things get finalized. Even the beta won't really tell much; the numbers and abilities will change many many times. Just as it did with DK.

Smirk: They really did not give out much information about the monks except them being able to perform all of the three roles and them not having no auto-attack, which makes monks sound like casters with only instant melee-range skills? Sounds... fierce!

The fanatics who promote 10man classrun as the only approved way of raiding are getting the biggest slap to the face trying to ram eleven people into ten raidslots ;)

Fragi: Can't really say anything certain about their usability in raids with the info given but they are almost certainly going to be quite good at least on some role they can choose. My first impressions otherwise are that they seemed to have some interesting mechanics ( no autoattack comes to mind ).

Xenophics: Again, we'll have to see. Blizzard will most likely have them you know, well tuned in the beginning so we have to make sure we level up a few in the beginning of the expansion. I also think it will great to see how they implement the melee class without auto attack, and with the same role possibilities paladins have.

 

Are there already players in Paragon who want to reroll a Monk once MoP comes out? 

Kyy: Yeah, there are few guys that really want to reroll monk. I don’t think those names were too huge surprise for anyone in guild. Personally I don’t have that much interest for the class yet. I’ve rerolled quite few times in short period of time so I still feel priest class has more to offer me.

zYN: Yeah, I'm definitely going to reroll a Monk right away. I might give it a shot to get the world first lvl 90 monk. I was one of the first even with my previous DK, despite not putting much effort into it. Even slept during the leveling, read the quest texts and whatnot. I did get a lot of help from Arx, Xeno and Jubeto though. In Cataclysm I still ended up as the first DK to hit 85, which (I thought) was silly - we started almost 2 hours late due to account upgrades not working. So who knows, will see.

Definitely excited about the prospect of min/maxing something completely new again and discovering some ridiculously imbalanced stuff with it. :) I also really like the fact that it'll be a very versatile hybrid. Got my hopes up.

Smirk: There are always people who like everything new and shiny, I won't be hopping into the bandwagon though.

Fragi: I wouldn't mind rerolling a monk if I had to but I'm quite content with the classes I'm playing atm. So probably I won't be the one rerolling from our guild as I know a few who are more enthusiastic with the new class.<

Xenophics: Heh, many people have been joking about Pandaren and monks and it certainly has caught our attention. I know I'll most likely be playing priest till the end, but as I already have all the healer alts, I'll end up making one monk as well. It will be interesting to see what kind of heals they'll be able to do, I'm not that interested in the melee or tanking specs.<